West Elm Opening Party

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the opening party for the new West Elm store in Logan Circle. I knew it would be great but let me tell you the space is stunning! I am also a huge fan of West Elm not only because they have great furniture but they also support local artisans. It's pretty cool that you can go into different locations & find something different from local artists.

As I walked into the store I was greeted with champagne + hor dourves. My kind of a party!

The space is bright & every corner is decorated with adorable things. Including these two cuties!

On the second floor you will find furniture for your living area + bedroom. Can I just live here? 

Of course we couldn't stop exploring the new space!

To make the opening even better, the animal rescue center was there with adorable dogs you could adopt (I wish!) Tony found the sweetest little poodle.

^^ Z & I got distracted (typical!) We convinced Tony to join in the fun.

Shop the look:

It was a great night & now my apartment wish list is a mile long! Thanks West Elm & congrats on your new store. If you're in the area I highly suggest you head to Logan Circle to find your home supply needs + support local.

Xo,

Emily

How To: Host a Murder Mystery Party

I’ve always wanted to host a murder mystery party but never knew how to go about it. That changed during a brainstorm at work when we came up with the idea to host one. The theme would be "Who Killed Myspace?" (I work in social media ;)) 

We decided to host a networking event with Ad 2 DC & tie the mystery into it. I will be sharing photos after the event (next Wednesday if you're in the area) but I didn't want to spoil the surprise!

Grab your friends & get ready to throw a murder mystery party! 

1. Determine Your Guest List

How many people do you want to attend your party? From here you can figure out how many characters you will need. We estimated around 25-30 guests for our party & came up with 35 social platforms to be the characters for our guests.

2. Develop Your Characters

This is the fun part! We created a word document with each character & wrote a description about their personality, who they hang out with, etc. Ours are a bit silly since we are using social platforms as the characters but it was fun & really got us thinking about who the murder could be...

3. Clues

After writing the character descriptions you should decide who the murder is. Come up with clues leading back to the murder in your document. For example: Ask XYZ whom XYZ was last seen with.

4. Print Character Descriptions

Once you have your character descriptions & clues print copies for your guests. 

5. Create a Ballot

Create a ballot to hand out to guests so they can cast their vote on the murder.

6. Best Actor

We also created a ballot so attendees can cast their vote on the best actor. You can giveaway a fun prize to get people really into it.

7. Prepare Roles

In an envelope include: the character description & clues to give to each guest as they arrive.

8. Props

Get a few props for each character to make it fun & to help get your guests really into the mystery.

9. Decorate

The day of your party decorate your space! You can also serve specialty cocktails to get your guests really into the Halloween spirit!

10. Have Fun

Your guests will solve the mystery with the hints that they were given & at the end everyone will write down who they believe to be the murder. Don't forget to have fun!

Do you have any fun Halloween traditions? Stay tuned for pictures from our event! 

Xo,

Emily